Monday 21 May 2007

Les excès de Paris

Saturday, 19 May – Les nuit des musées calls. Didn’t even know it was happening until coffee hour after aerobics and a couple of friends invite me to go with to the Musée Branly, which is open until 10pm tonight, and for free, with jugglers, dancers, music, drums. Went along at 8pm, found a line that snaked around the block, so instead we went through the café and ended up sharing a bottle of Pouilly Fumé with a couple of chirpy French women from the neighborhood, Yvonne and Nicole.

The park of the Musée Branly is great, situated as it is practically underneath the museum itself – which interior I’ve yet to see, since the lines have always been exaggerated after it opened last fall! When the foliage catches up to the landscaper’s vision, the park will be lovely, and colorfully exotic.

So instead, after some wine and pasta chez moi (with a superb sauce I scrambled together a l’improviste), Abby, Lynn and I wandered over to the Dome des Invalides and enjoyed the music and lights over Napoleon’s tomb, with neighbor Vincent joining us. Breathtaking, the men’s choir and the Corsican quartet and the horns, the sound vibrated throughout this cathedralic monument, a surreal bit of Saturday midnight pleasure.